Part Deux

Okay, so the talk was just not quite finished. Ari woke up on Wednesday and had more questions. She started the day with a whopper. "Mom, Santa is real right." I told her that her dad and I were Santa too. I explained that there may have been someone named St. Nicholas at some point in history and that the "spirit" of Santa was real. I also explained to her that the fact that Santa was her dad and I was one of the reasons we never used the whole "you have to be good" sort of thing when talking about Santa. I grew up in a rather poor family and I really never wanted our girls to associate not getting a lot with being bad. YUCK!!

So as the day progressed she also asked about the Easter Bunny and she seems really okay with all of it.

As we pulled out of the driveway this evening to go to the store she said, "Mom, did you know some kids never get any Christmas presents." I told her that was true. That sometimes it could happen if a family did not have money to buy Christmas or if a person did not celebrate Christmas. I explained that one of her friends goes to a Jewish school and that Jewish people celebrate other holidays.

No trauma, no anger, just conversation. We are not sure what we are going to do from here on out although we will not be repeating the same thing with her sister more than likely. When I first told John about being outed he suggested we tell Ari about the real reason for the celebrations, the history, and the symbolism and go from there. So I think I will approach Easter from that standpoint.

The funny thing is that before I had children I was absolutely certain that I would never do the Santa thing. I actually did not want to lie to my kids nor did I want to bring that whole idea of "he see's you when you are sleeping" it just felt creepy to me. Live and learn I guess.